The dark side of social capital: Lessons from the Madoff case

The contemporary social capital discourse is ‘probably less than twenty or so years old’ (Castiglione, 2008, p. 1), and its meaning remains elusive and contested (Castiglione, Van Deth, & Wolleb, 2008, pp. 2–21). However, this section develops the view that the returns of social capital can be understood in terms of two sets of intangible assets. First, intangible assets concerned with identity intangibles such as credibility, goodwill and reputation, and second, in terms of intangible assets to do with knowledge management. This section also contends that social capital is context dependent and in its economic context is framed by background assumptions taken from Coleman's rationalist theoretical treatment (1988, 1990). Furthermore, the relevance of the socio-economic perspective is discussed in terms of fraudster's exploitation of the socially embedded nature of all economic activity, including that of the market.